The Real Story Behind Macau’s Famous Egg Tarts

Last January, KFC Taiwan dropped a bombshell: they would be discontinuing their beloved egg tarts. The internet reacted with disbelief, which turned out to be the right response, because it was all just a publicity stunt. KFC wasn’t abandoning the egg tarts they had been selling for 28 years; they were just introducing a new “extra-crispy” version.

At this point, some of you may be thinking, “Phew. I love those KFC egg tarts.” 

And some of you will no doubt be thinking: “Why does an American fast food chain sell egg tarts?” 

It’s not just in Taiwan. KFC’s egg tarts are staples in Hong Kong, mainland China, Singapore and other parts of southeast Asia too. And they are a specific type of egg tart: 葡撻 (pou4 taat1), which translates as “Portuguese egg tart” in Cantonese. 

For the uninitiated, that only makes things even more confusing. It’s weird enough that KFC is selling egg tarts, but Portuguese egg tarts? 

As a bakery item, it’s not usual. Pou4 taat1 is not quite as common as the classic Hong Kong-style egg tart, but it’s still frequently spotted at bakeries in Hong Kong and in Chinese communities around the world, distinguished by its gently caramelised custard and flaky laminated crust. You can find it in the bakery section of T&T Supermarkets across Canada. You can find it in Chinatown Bakery in London. And you can find it — of course — at KFC. 

Where you won’t find it is anywhere in Portugal, because a pou4 tat1 is decidedly not a pastel de nata, the renowned egg tart born in a Hieronymite monastery in the Belém neighbourhood of Lisbon. Pastéis de nata are rich, eggy and creamy, with hints of lemon zest and cinnamon. Pou4 tat1 omit the spices and leans into a more egg-forward flavour, though with more cream than its Hong Kong cousin.

Pou4 taat1 are originally from Macau, which makes sense: Macau was a Portuguese colony for nearly 500 years. For most people, that’s all there is to it. But there’s a wrinkle to the story. What if we told you Macau’s Portuguese egg tarts were not Portuguese at all? And their history dates back only 40 years?

Because, as with so many beloved Hong Kong and Chinese food items that people take for granted, there’s more to the famous pou4 taat1 than meets the eye.

Not the heritage you’d expect

For most Hongkongers, the history of pou4 tat1 is clear: they’re from Macau, and they exist because Macau was Portuguese. Even egg tart connoisseurs like Bakehouse’s Grégoire Michaud are a little foggy on the origins of the pou4 tat1.

“It’s because the Portuguese colonised Macau,” he says. “Right?”

That would make sense, because Portugal left Macau with a unique culinary heritage that includes dishes with bacalhau (dried salted cod) and pastries like filhós, a type of doughnut often consumed during celebrations known as cha gardo (“fat tea”). But the pastel de nata was never part of Macau’s culinary heritage. 

Like many classic Portuguese desserts, pastéis de nata came into being due to a unique historical arrangement. Until the 19th century, Catholic religious orders were some of the biggest landowners in Portugal, and they received enormous amounts of eggs from their agricultural tenants. They used the egg whites to starch clothes. And they incorporated the yolks into rich desserts.

In the north, Carmelite nuns created the pastel de Tentúgal, a delicate cigar-shaped pastry filled with egg custard. Further south, the monks of Belém created the pastel de nata. These delicacies were sold to the nearby public to raise money for the religious orders, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that they were produced commercially. Religious orders were shut down following Portugal’s 1820 Liberal Revolution, but before closing, they often sold their recipes to local businesses. That was the case in Belém, where a sugar refinery bought the egg tart recipe from the monks and began producing it at a larger scale.

Pastéis de nata spread around Portugal and eventually followed Portuguese migrants around the world. Just not to Macau — at least not at first. That’s because, in the 19th century, Macau was in relative decline. After having been one of the most important European settlements in Asia for centuries, the establishment of British Hong Kong in 1841 siphoned off much of its commercial activity. 

And in any case, most of Macau’s culinary traditions were filtered not through Portugal but through the locally-rooted, culturally-mixed Macanese community, whose food had been shaped by centuries of contact between Portuguese, Chinese, Malay, Japanese, Sinhalese and Goan people united by Catholicism and Portuguese imperial trade. In other words, the people in Macau who were most connected to Portugal — such as teachers, colonial administrators and religious officials — were not the ones who were opening bakeries or working in kitchens. And the local people who were more likely to occupy those positions were connected to a very old, very mixed legacy of Portuguese empire, not to Portugal itself. 

Portugal by way of England

What this means is that there was no straight line between what people were eating in Portugal and what people were eating in Macau. It wasn’t until Macau became a destination for Hong Kong tourists in the 1980s that the pastel de nata finally arrived in Macau. 

Macanese journalist Cecília Jorge documented this history in a 1998 article for the Portuguese-language magazine Revista Macau. In 1984, Portuguese-born restaurateur Afonso Carrão Pereira arrived in Macau to run Afonso’s, a restaurant in the newly opened Hyatt Regency, the territory’s first five-star resort. Two years later, pastry chef Elias da Silva introduced pastéis de nata to the dessert menu. 

Among the people who ate those eggy pastries were British-born pharmacist Andrew Stow and his wife Margaret Wong. Stow had moved to Macau in 1979 to work for the local office of Anglo-French Laboratories, an Indian vitamin company. Five years later, he and Wong started their own venture, Tropical Health Foods. To support the fledgling business, Stow also worked as a manager at Afonso’s and the Green Parrot Disco, also located inside the Hyatt. 

In 1989, Stow and Margaret opened Lord Stow’s Bakery in Coloane, a sleepy village in the far southern reaches of Macau; the name was derived from the cheeky nickname Stow had earned while working at the Hyatt. The following year, after a holiday in Portugal where they tasted a variety of pastéis de nata, they decided to create their own version of the pastry, dropping the cinnamon and lemon zest and boosting the egginess. Stow described it as an “English touch,” but it may have also been a savvy move to appeal to local Cantonese tastes. 

The original Lord Stow’s Bakery, which opened in Coloane in 1989

The egg tart craze

The recipe was a hit. Macau was an increasingly popular getaway for Hongkongers, who took the fast hydrofoil ferry across the mouth of the Pearl River Delta to gamble, feast and indulge in the exotic colonial Portuguese atmosphere. Hong Kong media quickly sniffed out Lord Stow’s egg tarts, which drew a steady stream of customers. By the late 1990s, according to Cecília Jorge, the egg tarts were a popular gift-box item sold not only at Lord Stow’s but also at the airport and ferry terminals.

Around this time, Stow and Wong divorced, and Wong opened her own rival bakery in Macau’s city centre: Margaret’s Café e Nata. The competition pushed both businesses to expand. Lord Stow’s opened a franchise in Hong Kong in 1997, followed by Taipei in 1998, and Osaka and Manila in 1999. Margaret’s responded with a major coup in 1999, striking a franchise agreement with KFC. Outlets of the fried chicken behemoth began selling Margaret’s egg tarts across Asia. According to a KFC spokesperson quoted in Hong Kong news outlet HK01, the chain still uses Margaret’s recipe to this day.

Lord Stow’s international franchises and the introduction of Margaret’s tarts to KFC sparked an egg tart craze right across Asia. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, countless bakeries started making their own versions of pou4 taat1. According to Jorge, demand for eggs surged so much in Taiwan that egg prices quadrupled in a little over six months; the Taiwanese government appealed to everyone to stop eating so many eggs. 

The pou4 taat1 had entered Asia’s culinary canon.

The actual difference

But what exactly makes a pou4 taat1 different from a pastel de nata? You can find out for yourself: a branch of the famous Lisbon bakery Manteigaria opened in Macau last year, not far from Margaret’s Café e Nata. The Macao News took the opportunity to explore the differences, with input from Manteigaria pastry chef Pedro Almeida and Eileen Stow, who has run Stow’s Bakery since her brother Andrew died suddenly from an asthma attack in 2006.

Pastel de nata uses a laminated puff pastry made in the traditional manner with butter. Its filling is partially cooked before baking: Almeida says bakers cook milk and flour on the stove until thickened, then add egg yolks and a sugar syrup. That syrup is typically infused with lemon rind and whole cinnamon. The tart then bakes for eight minutes, which caramelises the top of the custard, giving it an even richer taste. The tart is often served dusted with cinnamon or icing sugar and accompanied by an espresso.

The pou4 taat1 also uses puff pastry and a caramelised top, but the filling is handled differently. Lord Stow’s tart uses a filling of eggs, milk, cream and sugar that remains raw until the whole tart is baked. Macao News says Lord Stow’s bakers use margarine instead of butter in the pastry, producing a shell that is less buttery but noticeably crispier. The result is a tart with a more gelatinous, pudding-like texture, a more intense egg flavour and a less flaky crust than a pastel de nata. At Lord Stow’s and Margaret’s, customers often eat their pou4 taat1 with homemade Hong Kong-style milk tea. 

It’s worth noting that the pou4 taat1 occupies an interesting middle ground between the pastel de nata and the Hong Kong-style egg tart. Hong Kong egg tarts are believed to have been derived from English custard tarts, first invented in Guangzhou in the 1920s, and were initially served in a smaller form as dim sum before becoming the bakery staple they are today. Its filling consists mainly of eggs, evaporated milk and water, with a mildly sweet egginess as the defining flavour, without the richness creaminess associated with both pou4 taat1 and pastel de nata. 

Which of the three is better? That’s up to you. Bakehouse’s Grégoire Michaud — known for his own distinct style of egg tart — is sanguine about the variation. “I’ve tried all of them,” he says with apparent satisfaction. “They’re all very different. They’re all good.”